Anticipating that the depressed economy will continue, the Denver Art Museum is cutting its 2009 fiscal-year budget by $2.5 million, or about 12 percent.

Director Lewis Sharp said the cuts will be achieved primarily through belt-tightening and will not involve layoffs or significant changes to the museum’s operations. The museum has about 200 employees.

“When you visit the Denver Art Museum, you will not feel that there has been any reduction or change in program,” he said. “It still will look pretty much the same, whether you go over today or last week.”

The only exception is the cancellation of an exhibition of 17th-century Indian paintings from the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland. The show was scheduled July 5-Sept. 13.

“It’s not an expensive show,” Sharp said, “But it’s everything that goes with the show — the marketing, the installation, all the expenses related to it. We said we need to be more prudent in the way we’re managing all our resources and manpower.”

In September, the museum’s board approved a $21.3 million budget for fiscal year 2009, which runs through Aug. 30. But it realized a month later that reductions would have to be made, and a revised budget of $18.8 million was approved earlier this week.

Sharp said the cut is a precaution based on inevitable drops in revenue from the museum’s endowment and the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District, which is funded by a seven-county sales tax. He declined to disclose how much the museum’s endowment has fallen, saying the museum does not yet have a “clear indication.”

“We will come through this, and there will be some losses,” Sharp said.

Vic Damone, a pop crooner whose creamy baritone and heartthrob good looks propelled his success at the jukebox and on-screen in the post-World War II era, and for five decades more in nightclubs and concert halls, died Feb. 11 at a hospital in Miami Beach. He was 89.